Double food production by 2050 for population, income growth. Focus on sustainable, cost-effective tech for environmental protection and sustainability.

India has long been associated with agriculture and farming & the agricultural industry continues to contribute significantly to our country’s GDP (20.19% in 2022).

In fact, agriculture is a way of life & livelihood for most Indians & our history is deeply intertwined with celebrating agriculture & harvesting.

As the first of the harvest festivals roll in, we briefly look at its origin.

A brief history of harvest festivals in India:

Harvest festivals in India are celebrated to mark the end of a crop cycle and the beginning of a new one. They are a way to honour the hardworking farmers for their labour and dedication to the land.

The harvest festivals take place around the time of the main harvest of a particular region based on their climate and crops starting in Jan with Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Uttarayana, Lohri, and Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu, Holi in February–March, Baisakhi in April and Onam in August–September.

There are numerous other harvest festivals in India like Basant Panchami, Bhogali Bihu, Wangala, Nuakhai, Gudi Padwa, Nabanna, Ugadi etc with each region celebrating in its own unique way.

For farmers in India, these festivals provide an opportunity for them to sell their produce and make a profit.

Harvest festivals celebrated in India, but sustainable sourcing still a concern.

Embracing Sustainability in Supply Chain Management:

Sustainable sourcing in India through organic farming, integrated pest management, and resource conservation.

But, these practices of sustainable sourcing have been tough to scale up, especially since India has a large population. 

2022 was an especially challenging year for the global food system that exposed the structural weaknesses when faced with challenges such as extreme weather conditions, supply-chain disruptions, geo-political tensions, international conflicts and food wastage in the face of the pandemic COVID-19.

India ranked 107th in GHI 2022, highlighting urgency for sustainability solutions to hunger and food security.

Before we proceed, let us look at the current challenges in terms of sustainable sourcing & sustainable agricultural practices, starting with agricultural supply chain disruptions: 

Agricultural supply-chain disruptions refer to the interruptions in the flow of agricultural goods from the producer to the consumer. Disruptions caused by natural disasters, transportation, labor shortages, and consumer demand changes.

Other major causes of agricultural supply-chain disruptions in India include

• Lack of proper infrastructure and logistics. Rural areas in India still lack proper roads, storage facilities, and transportation networks, which can make it difficult to get products to market leading to delays resulting in spoilage of produce. 
• Lack of coordination and communication between different actors in the supply chain. This can lead to mismatches between supply and demand, resulting in a surplus or shortage of products. Additionally, the lack of transparency and traceability in the supply chain can make it difficult to identify and address problems.
• Pollution and extreme weather events like droughts, floods and landslides can damage crops thus affecting transportation and logistics, ultimately resulting in supply-chain disruptions.

To understand the landscape of sustainability in farming better, we spoke to Ajit Narra, founder of  FarmChakra, India's first crop investment product for sustainable farming.

Q1: What are the top polluters or distorters in the Indian agricultural sector in 2023?

A1: Indian agriculture contributes to pollution and degradation with major sources of pollution. Some of the top polluters or distorters include

• Soil degradation due to excessive fertilizer use and not practising regenerative farming to conserve the soil i.e. Monoculture cropping, the practice of growing a single crop year after year in the same field can lead to soil degradation and reduced crop yields.
• Crop stubble burning: A practice in which farmers burn the leftover straw and stalks of crops (stubble) after harvest. This practice is common in states across India. It has a number of negative impacts such as
  • Air pollution
  • Soil degradation
  • Greenhouse gas emissions
  • Loss of biodiversity
  • Reduced soil moisture
  • Reduced soil fertility etc. 
• Post-harvest loss due to lack of common processing facilities: Some of the key ways that lack of processing facilities can lead to post-harvest loss include:
  • Lack of storage facilities: Many farmers in India lack access to proper storage facilities, which can lead to the spoilage of crops due to exposure to heat and moisture.
  • Lack of transportation infrastructure: Poor transportation infrastructure can make it difficult for farmers to get their produce to market in a timely manner, leading to spoilage and loss.
  • Lack of value-added processing: Many farmers in India lack access to value-added processing facilities such as canning, freezing, or packaging, which can lead to reduced income from their crops.

Polluters and distorters harm the environment, addressing needed for sustainable ag in India.

Q2: What are the top scalable solutions to ensure sustainability? 

A2: The top scalable solutions to ensure sustainable farming practices include: 

1. Provision of post-harvest management solutions: Mitigation of wastage, and ensuring the safety of the produce until the last-mile delivery, has become important and Agritech is at an evolution stage
2. Risk management solutions for farmers

FarmChakra provides a unique solution for risk management

3. Crop stubble value creation: What needs to go right for us to drop burning from 30% to 10%?

• Suitable equipment: We need equipment to lift bales that can work at scale without labour involvement. We also need seeders that work in clayey soils etc. 
• Expertise in growing a variety of crops: As our expertise in growing increases we will be able to target crops that have suitable planting windows that buy us time to deal with the stubble. No market linkage challenges for our current scale.
• No last-minute weather surprises: Field moisture conditions need to be carefully monitored before harvest to ensure that there is enough moisture for the decomposers to work properly.

Q3: What is Farmchakra’s vision & how do you plan to scale in the future? 

A3:By taking a planet-first and people-focused approach, Farm Chakra is advancing modern which supports sustainable farming for a better world. The company is constructing a portfolio of farms that follow environmentally friendly practices and produce crops without any residual substances

Sustainable farming also for efficient, high-quality produce. 

Enhancing yields with science and farming experience

Farming is rewarding – mentally, spiritually, and financially. But it is not without risk: it requires serious investment, crisp execution, and systematic experimentation. We are confident that over time we will be able to create value for our crop investors and the community.

We appreciate the insights shared by Ajith & the team at FarmChakra - learn more about them by visiting: https://farmchakra.com

All in all, In 2023 we can expect some significant movement in agri-food industry trends:

• Agri-financing and sustainability investments will accelerate
• There will be a huge and rapid shift towards digitization of agriculture for maximising the visibility, sustainability & transparency of food systems 
• Improved access to resources for sustainable agriculture in India.
• Better coordination and communication between different players in the supply chain.
• Nations will build self-reliance and self-sufficiency in food production.

To learn more about the trends in the manufacturing industry, head over to our  website 

Discovering and managing the right vendors is crucial for the growth of any organization.

In the manufacturing industry, the discovery of service vendors is done primarily through age-old techniques, such as offline directories, personal networks/references, and generalized online search engines like Google, resulting in manual effort, inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

Service procurement includes all kinds of engineering requirements across projects, operations and maintenance. This includes a combination of supply, installation, maintenance, safety etc.

The conventional process of service procurement in the manufacturing industry goes through informal stages and procedures which have many disadvantages. 

Let us start by looking at the challenges faced by managers who are engaged in services procurement. 

1. Fewer Options and Time-Consuming Process

In the traditional process, initially, a manager relies on their personal networks or networks of other managers to identify and scout vendors for collaboration when a service requirement arises.

They also search online and try to contact suppliers via listings and directories. These limited channels only help in obtaining the contact details of the vendor.

The manager still has to spend his valuable time and effort in pre-screening these vendors in order to understand their capabilities. After this effort, buyers are still left with a small pool of options to choose from.

The whole process of discovery itself may take weeks to months to shortlist the most suitable vendor. Time is money. 

This hampers a company's pace of operations or projects which reflects in its financial performance. 

2. Incomplete and Unorganized Vendor Data  

Services procurement is always customized as per a user’s requirement and thus it is not possible to buy services off the shelf from any vendor.

That is the reason traditional services procurement is not generally organized or transparent.

Purchasing or procuring services necessitates a thorough evaluation of service providers which entails gathering and assessing a lot of qualitative data from the vendor like technical capabilities, financial capabilities, past experience and clients, etc.

It is a huge manual task to follow up and aggregate all the relevant details and documents from vendors. Eventually, managers are left with low-confidence data points and are not able to make informed and well-considered decisions.

3. No Reviews or Testimonials 

While seller/vendor reviews have become absolutely necessary for B2C buyers to make an informed decision, it still has to become mainstream for B2B purchases - especially services.

Due to the absence of the right tools and feedback mechanisms, vendors usually do not maintain customer reviews or testimonials about their previous works.

A nod of approval in the form of a review/referral from another company with which the vendor does business can reveal a lot about their genuine capabilities and professionalism. 

4. Measuring the right price

Most of the time, a manager who is restricted by access to a small pool of service vendors is ultimately constrained with price discovery.

The unavailability of pricing benchmarks forces the manager into blind negotiation and ultimately higher pricing.

Having more pre-qualified vendor options implies stronger competition among them to deliver better quality services at the lowest possible price. 

Thus, the whole traditional process of vendor discovery and evaluation is tedious and inefficient.

Venwiz aims to close this gap by providing a full-fledged solution by digitally organizing end-to-end service engagements for each factory, from finding the best service providers to collaborating with them and carrying out the job. 

Read the solutions offered by Venwiz platform to overcome all the challenges in vendor discovery and management processes highlighted above:

1. Verified Quality and Background of Vendors

Venwiz is the ‘go-to’ platform for helping managers across manufacturing industries discover, assess and collaborate with verified and genuine vendors from across the country.

At each stage, rigorous verification and relevancy checks are performed to guarantee that the vendor information is correct.

2. Compare and Find the Right Vendor Quickly 

Venwiz reduces the time and cost of vendor discovery by previewing verified and detailed vendor profiles relevant only to the business requirements, in a structured way to save time and effort, especially helping buyers reach the shortlisting stage within a few minutes (a process that would otherwise take weeks).

Venwiz provides intelligent filtering and suggested job categories, as well as a smooth interface to zero down the results and help buyers match with the right vendor.

3. Transparency: Holistic Vendor Profiling

On Venwiz, holistic vendor profiles are created and data is organized for intelligent vendor selection. Vendors’ capabilities, experience, certificates, references, communication and timelines are verified and recorded in their digital profiles. 

The manager can access any verified digital profile and assess if the vendor can be considered for a job...within minutes 

 This will help a  manager in the manufacturing industry, giving them the ability to quickly assess whether the vendor is the right match for the job and increase the chances of a vendor being available for the job.

4. Reviews and Ratings

Venwiz allows reviewing and sharing feedback under all vendor profiles, and viewing previous client experiences to facilitate decision-making

Reviews and testimonials against a vendor profile by their previous clients are one of the most important decision-making criteria empowering managers to make an informed choice. 

5. Price Comparison 

Venwiz aggregates service vendors in the manufacturing industry from across the country to provide the buyer more scope for price negotiations and give options. 

This not only enables managers to discover the right vendor, but also empowers them with the power of negotiation. Right quality at minimal cost is the ultimate goal of every manager. 

Join Venwiz today to source and collaborate with vendors through a single digital platform in a simplified, efficient and smart way.

To read about other features of the Venwiz platform, click here

Streamline vendor options with us here!

The process of industrial services procurement has remained unchanged over decades, for operations, project, and maintenance managers as well as vendors, in manufacturing and allied industries. The traditional process is also familiar to them, and thus remains the primary mode of operation, despite large-scale digitization across other parts of the industry. However, familiarity with a process does not guarantee efficiency or even results.

This is what the founders of Venwiz realized while working in the manufacturing industry. They witnessed the challenges faced by manufacturers and vendors firsthand. Thus prompting the question:

What if we told you there was a way in which digitization could not only improve the process but also reduce time, increase efficiency and improve collaboration?

Thus Venwiz was created as a one-stop solution and one of the most powerful tools for your business whether you are a manufacturer or a vendor.

What can Venwiz do for you?

Let us begin by defining our solutions at a micro-level for our primary stakeholders i.e. Operations, Project or Maintenance managers & Vendors. With Venwiz, you get a full-fledged solution that is focused on improving your service procurement journey, within the manufacturing and allied industries.

If you are a Manufacturer, Venwiz can help you:

• Reduce time and cost of vendor discovery, preview vetted and comprehensive vendor profiles to evaluate a vendor 
• Engage with vendors digitally via the platform
• Access a large valuable network of relevant service vendors leading to better price discovery 
• Benchmark your existing vendors against a larger pool outside your network
• Review and share feedback as well as view previous client experiences for vendors 

You can request to join us via this form or you can join our waitlist.

As a vendor once you sign up on Venwiz, you get:

• Simplified registration
• Connected to qualified and high-value business leads from across India
• Introduced to the relevant stakeholders within a manufacturing facility
• Expand business into new geographies or verticals based on real demand
• SaaS features that enable you to manage your business and communications through a single window
• Feedback on your performance from clients and insights on skill gaps

Share your details with us via this form to join our waitlist.

To give you a better understanding of how Venwiz is changing the landscape of industrial service procurement for you, let us walk you through a simple comparison of the traditional process that most managers and vendors are familiar with, versus the Venwiz experience. 

Note: Industrial Services encompass a broad range of activities that a shop floor manager needs to source from vendors to ensure continuous and smooth operations at a manufacturing plant.

Traditional Industrial Service Procurement in India:

Traditionally, industrial service procurement goes through the stages of offline discovery of service vendors, informal scoping, and job collaboration which is not only expensive and laborious but also time-consuming for managers.

Whenever a service requirement is identified, a manager initially relies on their personal network or networks of other managers to source/discover the right vendors to collaborate with. Alternatively, they search online and try to contact vendors via listings and directories. This process could take anywhere from a few weeks to months, to get to the stage of shortlisting. The number of service vendors that can be evaluated by a manager, is also limited by these networks, lists, and directories and remains unorganized.

Most of the time when evaluating a limited pool of vendors over a long period, a manager who is deprived of a larger choice will ultimately be limited with price discovery as well. There is also a huge dependency on the availability of those particular vendors to do the job, at the required time.

Additionally, as service procurement is not uniformly standardized it cannot be procured right off the shelf.

Purchasing or procuring customized services requires a deep evaluation of the appropriate service vendor. Everything from their capabilities to scope of work and experience of past clients would need to be verified, thus making it both a qualitative as well as a quantitative evaluation, something that is not readily available even after you can discover vendors within the network.

The Venwiz Solution: 

At Venwiz, we are addressing these challenges at their core. Our solution is a simple, yet powerful AI-driven platform that will help our users discover service vendors who are relevant only to their requirements, saving stakeholders time and effort, especially helping them reach the shortlisting stage within a few minutes (a process that would otherwise take months). We aggregate service vendors from across the country and equip them with a detailed 360-degree business profile. This profile will also help managers, giving them the ability to quickly assess whether the vendor is the right match for the job.We have also considered the barrier of improving how vendors & manufacturers communicate;

All of these challenges faced are taken into account and addressed comprehensively, from the point of view of the industry, considering all stakeholders in the process of industrial service procurement. 

Our goal is to be your one-stop solution for all the service requirements at a manufacturing facility. We are currently in the process of helping managers discover prescreened vendors on our platform and access all relevant information required to shortlist them. Join us today to initiate your journey towards becoming more efficient and streamlining your process of industrial service procurement.

To discover our offerings, click on the link!